American Advisors: Security Force Assistance Model in the Long War

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Potter is a US Army Officer who has served in several operational assignments in CONUS, Europe, and South Western Asia. Upon graduating from West Point in 1993, he served in a variety of Air Defense Artillery, Special Forces, and Civil Affairs assignments. He also earned a Master’s of Science degree in Health Sciences from Touro University in 2009. Potter co-authored several professional articles, blogs, and sections of military Field Manuals relating to influence techniques, counterinsurgency, and Security Force Assistance. He also co-authored Ambush!: A Professionals Guide to Preparing or Preventing Ambushes (Paladin Press, 2010) with CDR (ret) Gary Stubblefield and Mark Monday. In accordance with his duties, Potter has advised and partnered with military forces in Saudi Arabia (1994, 1995, and 1997), Republic of Georgia (2000), Russia (2004), Bulgaria (2004), and Iraq (2003-2006, 2009-2010). Specifically, he trained scores of Advisor Teams preparing for Iraq and Afghanistan while stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas from 2007 to 2010. Potter has led teams which trained more than 12,000 deploying military and civilian advisors in the US and 22 supporting countries at the NATO Joint Forces Training Center, Poland as well as 50 Afghan officers and soldiers. He has further developed humanitarian demining operations with Georgian, Armenian, and Azeri military and civilian engineers in 2000. He earned three Bronze Stars and a Joint Commendation Medal for his multiple tours of service in combat. Among other decorations, Josh earned the Purple Heart when he was wounded by a 60mm mortar attack in Iraq in August 2006. He went on patrol the following day with his 11-man Team and the Iraqi National Police in the streets of Baghdad. During that particular tour of duty (2005-2006), his Team conducted over 300 mounted and dismounted patrols, nabbed over 90 insurgents with his small US Team and 700-man Iraqi National Police Battalion, and personally discovered and secured six IEDs and VBIEDS allowing EOD personnel to destroy them in place. In 2009-2010, LTC Potter most recently served as the US Advisor to staff Major General Ali Jassim Muhammed Hassan Al-Firaji, the Commanding General to the 17th Iraqi Army Division, on his fourth combat tour to Iraq (2009-2010). He is currently serving as as the Commander of the 81st Civil Affairs Battalion in Fort Hood, Texas.